Become a Board Trustee for a new environmental education NGO

We are looking for Scotland or UK-based Trustees to join the Board of Casagua and support with charity finance, governance, fundraising, marketing and communications, helping us to implement our charitable purposes and grow our impact in rural Guatemala.

About Casagua

Casagua is a new Scottish-registered educational organisation (SC053750) operational in Nebaj, the Maya Ixil Region of Guatemala. Our vision is of a community that lives in harmony with nature, inspired by the Mayan cosmovision and engaged in social and environmental action. Our mission is to create educational and agroecological learning opportunities to promote happy and creative childhoods in the Maya Ixil Region.

Co-founders and co-directors Cat and Checha created Casagua as an educational space in their house and garden on the slopes of Central America’s highest non-volcanic mountain range, the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes. The project began back in 2020 when, during the pandemic, their young neighbours in Nebaj were not able to attend school and had very few learning opportunities. Cat and Checha opened their doors and children came for homework help and to paint murals, sow seeds, grow a garden and read books.

In late 2024, Cat and Checha registered Casagua as an NGO in order to formalise their activities into an established project.

Since the beginning of 2025, Cat and Checha have been running weekly environmental education workshops with a group of 20 children between 6-13-years-old. Through a play-based approach, integrating arts, theatre and music, they offer an engaging space of learning in the outdoors.

Our Board

We currently have 3 board members; one based in Scotland; one in Portugal; one in Italy. They are all civil society and community development professionals connected to Casagua as friends and family who have visited, worked and/or lived in Nebaj and spent considerable time at Casagua.

We now want to expand our Board to include more UK-based individuals who can help our new environmental education NGO take-off and grow. We are especially keen to find new Trustees who:

• Share our passion for environmental action, agroecology and nature connection
• Enjoy supporting non-profit educational programmes and/or working with children and young people
• Have an interest or previous experience in the Global South, preferably Latin America
• Are knowledgeable about charity governance, finance and reporting
• Can champion Casagua’s work, values and goals and provide networking and fundraising opportunities

We hope to expand our Board by around 2-4 people, and are particularly looking for individuals with skills and experience in one or more of the following areas:

• Charity Finance
  • We are specifically looking to fill a Treasurer Role and find someone who can help with our annual accounts, ideally with experience of charity bank accounts for grassroots international operations.
• Fundraising
  • We would like to work with someone with in-depth knowledge and understanding of fundraising in the UK and Scottish charity sectors and diverse income generation strategies, especially setting up an individual and regular giving programme.
• Marketing and Communications
  • We would welcome someone social media savvy who can help to run our website and Instagram page and grow our followers, engaging and interacting with similar organisations and individuals locally and globally. This role would ideally be for a bilingual English-Spanish speaker.
• Monitoring and Evaluation
  • We are focused on developing robust, creative and child-led M+E processes and would welcome expertise in helping to implement this, in conjunction with grant and funding applications and reporting impact to donors.

Responsibilities and Benefits

The Board will meet every quarter, with other regular communication and updates taking place on a shared bilingual Whatsapp group as well as a Shared organisational Google Drive. While our Board members have responsibility for ensuring that we meet our charitable purposes and uphold our legal responsibilities as a charity, we also want our Board to be a shared space of creativity, curiosity and learning! We believe in the power of community: being part of Casagua will give the Board Members a sense of belonging to a diverse and proactive international group that spearheads impactful local actions in rural Guatemala, while connecting with environmental and educational networks globally.

As a small charity rooted in our particular context, we encourage Board members to visit Guatemala and volunteer at the workshops to gain a real feel for the work we’re doing as well as meet the bright, enthusiastic children who make Casagua what it is. We are also interested in expanding international volunteer opportunities at Casagua through university placements, internships and WWOOFing.

This is an exciting time to join us as we are just getting started, but are ready to work locally and connect globally in order to achieve our vision and contribute to a more just, creative and healthy planet where children everywhere have opportunities to play, grow and thrive.

To apply to become a Casagua Trustee, please send a CV and accompanying letter outlining your specific skills and interest in this position to: info@casagua.org. We will accept applications on a rolling basis until the positions are filled.